Business Wire Gets Socially Analytic with NUVI

by Sandy Malloy, Senior Information Specialist, Business Wire/SF

Sandy Malloy, Senior Information Specialist

I do love information. My Business Wire Twitter handle is @BWInfoDiva and in my profile I even describe myself as a “baseball stat geek.” But I am the kind of stat geek who appreciates statistics only for what they mean, and I like to be able to use them to some end. I didn’t enjoy Moneyball because I think that OBP is so cool (that’s “on base percentage” for you non-baseball-stat-geek types); I enjoyed it because of the way it illustrated using statistics to place a value on previously undervalued assets and then turning that information into action; in this case, to maximize an organization’s budget.

Many of Business Wire’s clients face the “How do I make sense of this data and what action should I take?” dilemma when it comes to analyzing social media. There are many excellent social media monitoring and analysis products in the marketplace. I should know, as I’ve seen more than my share of demos. But until I saw a demo of new Business Wire partner NUVI I couldn’t tell many of those products apart. They all had sentiment metrics; they all showed the number of posts, and followers; they all targeted “influencers”; and they all presented charts and graphs. In my opinion, there were too MANY charts and graphs and after a while they start to run together in my mind.

What’s different about NUVI is that the underlying information might be similar to data that other social media monitoring and analysis companies are gathering, but the presentation is more accessible and far more useful. NUVI is built on a visual platform that allows customers to actually see the key metrics in real time as a bubble stream. Or, they can simply focus on an easy to understand overview that provides sentiment, influencers, popularity, and trend information at a glance.

NUVI Bubble Stream (click for full-size)

NUVI Overview (click for full-size)

It’s difficult to describe data visualization in words, but here’s an analogy: Imagine that someone tells you there’s a fire in the neighborhood. Then imagine you are looking at a graphic of some type showing you where a fire might have been detected 15 minutes ago. Now imagine looking out your window and seeing flames and smoke. Which scenario would be most likely to get you to evacuate immediately? Data visualization makes it easier to turn information into action.

Speaking of action, NUVI provides tools that make the sentiment, popularity and influence of posts immediately apparent. So, much of the guesswork is removed from the decision to engage with a member of your social media audience, or not. Clients can click on a large bubble, indicating a high degree of influence and/or popularity, and contact that person directly. This interactivity is built into other parts of the platform as well. And since the product is truly “real time”, even volatile situations can be monitored as they unfold.